If this article is any indication, gulf coast contractors will be welcoming the inevitable illegal alien stampede with open arms!



http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news ... 690249.htm

Posted on Tue, Sep. 20, 2005


A silver lining for day laborers

As Gulfport, Miss., mops up, they have their pick of assignments and premium pay as well.

By Scott Canon

Knight Ridder News Service


GULFPORT, Miss. - Robert Thorpe and Tim Tucker weighed their options.

They could have as many days as they wanted of $8- to $10-an-hour labor, well above what they had been making back home framing houses near Petersburg, Tenn.

But that pay would be subject to the usual range of taxes. The two men were hoping for cash without all those annoying deductions the government insists on.

"Looks like we've got some room to bargain around here," Thorpe said yesterday morning. "There's an awful lot of work to be done."

More work than workers, in fact. Thorpe and Tucker decided to hold out for cash.

In the market of day labor - "work today, paid today," boast the temporary-help agencies - the tables have turned.

Before Katrina, day laborers outnumbered temporary unskilled jobs; now, it's a workers' market.

As an account representative for Labor Ready, Tammy Owen said that before Hurricane Katrina tore through southern Mississippi, she could offer work to about 75 laborers on a typical day. Most days she had to turn workers away.

Now she can easily offer 300 jobs a day and is lucky to get two dozen takers. Before Katrina, the tight job market and Mississippi's traditional low pay kept the offers around $5.50 an hour, maybe $6.50 on a good day.

Today, with the mess of Katrina visible on every block, wages for an unskilled laborer begin at $8 and often run to $11 an hour.

"I've had contractors hanging around out front taking people away before we can get them in the door," Owen said. "It's hard to compete when they pay cash."

She notes that those laborers opting for the cash jobs put themselves at risk - no worker's compensation, no disability coverage - and that she has an ATM in her shop capable of converting daily pay stubs into greenbacks.

"We can get some people," Owen said. "Just not enough."

Most of the work involves cleaning up the storm's seemingly endless debris. There is also a heavy demand to board up the shattered windows on homes and businesses. And many stores are looking for workers to load merchandise onto trucks for shipment - liquidating goods that weren't soaked by Katrina.

Rich Lee, who owns a small construction company, struggles to keep enough workers. Two days after the hurricane, he gave one longtime worker $500 to fetch gas and food for the crew. He hasn't seen him since.

"I figure he went out to start up his own operation," said Lee, the owner of Richmond Construction in Gulfport. "I'm expecting to see him in six months when that doesn't work out for him anymore."

In the meantime, he picked up Sebastian Lacey, 25, whose job disappeared with the destruction of the Mexican restaurant where he waited tables. Now Lacey is learning a little carpentry and settling into his new job.